The present invention relates generally to pet accessories and, more particularly, to an automatic self cleaning litter box.
This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects of art, which may be related to various aspects of the present invention that are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present invention. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Pet owners have long sought a convenient and sanitary way to deal with pet waste generated inside the household. With some success, many pet owners train their pets to expel waste in a container housing a disposable absorbent medium. Encasing the pet waste, the absorbent medium forms clumps that the pet owner later removes. However, early absorbent mediums presented almost as many problems as they solved. Prior to the invention of cat litter in the 1920's, pet owners used ashes to absorb pet waste. To the frustration of pet owners, the ashes quickly spread throughout the house in the form of paw prints. Cat litter, on the other hand, includes heavy clay particles that absorb pet waste but that are not as easily carried from the litter box by a pet's paws.
However, the traditional litter box left pet owners with a highly unpleasant recurring task, cleaning the litter box. To avoid the buildup of pet waste, pet owners still must clean the litter box by manually sifting clumps of pet waste from the litter with a hand held plastic comb or scoop. The pet owner runs the comb through the litter and deposits the pet waste in a separate bin for disposal. This places pet owners in close proximity to pet waste, a situation many pet owners find both unsanitary and unpleasant. Thus, simply training a pet to use a litter box is, at best, a partial solution to the problem of pet waste disposal.
In an effort to avoid the shortcomings of the traditional litter box, pet owners turned to automatic self cleaning litter boxes, which relieved pet owners of manually sifting litter clumps from litter. To separate the clumps most automatic self cleaning litter boxes employ a mechanically driven comb, a pet sensor, and a waste receptacle to store the litter clumps. As a pet expels waste in an automatic self cleaning litter box, the pet sensor detects the pet's presence. Then, some time after the pet sensor ceases to detect the pet's presence, the mechanically driven comb automatically sifts the larger litter clumps from the smaller loose litter particles. Multiple tines extending from the comb and into the litter are spaced far enough apart to allow the small loose litter particles to pass between the tines. As the comb sifts through the litter, it collects the clumps, which are too large to pass through the space between the tines. The comb deposits the clumps in a waste bin and leaves the unused litter in the litter box. Thus, the automatic self cleaning litter box relieved pet owners of separating and storing the clumps.